A Look Back at Hipgnosis, Pioneers of the Avant-Garde Record Cover

In my opinion, the most illustrious and tragic victim of the digital revolution in music is album art. It’s hard to think of a classic record without thinking of its cover design; in any case, it wouldn’t have any history. Album art on the internet is weightless, intangible, and scentless. What about the dimensions? What about the back of it? This is one reason why vinyl is making such a masterful comeback in sales—having a tangible design is almost more important than sound quality itself. The packaging of a vinyl record is essentially a square with two (or more) faces, and you get to savor everything about the graphics. So this strikes me as an appropriate occasion to talk about Hipgnosis, a London-based design group that pioneered avant-garde album art and which is, in 2018, celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first cover.